Abstract
This paper investigates quantitative cavitation characterization. In this context we propose shadow imaging to determine cavitation thickness and tip vortex volume. We propose a laser adjustment for absolute calibration and address cavitation extent by means of image processing. We present advantages and disadvantages of automatic processing with regard to our proposed techniques. Our main focus is on the novel cavitation thickness and tip vortex occurrence processing. Due to turbulent fluctuations all used techniques provide statistical results. The accuracy of single measurements mainly depends on camera resolution, aberrations in the optical path, illumination and optical access.